Thread: ADA Journal - Let's give this a proper try

Day 7 - Monday September 30 2013

I had to stop this exercise over the weekend. I found that my motivation was just insufficient to do it through all the hectic activities over the weekend. Today I started up again with renewed motivation, with great results, so I think that taking a break was essential. Not having tried this before, I think doing 7 days in a row might have been over-reaching for a first attempt. Doing 3-4 days in a row followed by a break and then resuming makes a little more sense--it's how meditation retreats are structured in real life. Usually people go away for a day and night, and then when they feel they're ready they go for 3 or 4 days, then a week, then a month, etc.

As I get more familiar with the state of mind, I am picking up on many subtleties. For example, today I noticed that it takes a while to "settle in" to a state of awareness. The first time you start (in a day, time of day doesn't matter), it is easy to lose concentration. Once you have managed to maintain awareness for about 45-60 minutes, you pass a tipping point and it actually becomes quite easy to maintain. A big sign that you're there is that you start reacting to things "normally" while retaining awareness. For example, you might see something unexpected that makes you laugh. Normally you'd lose awareness while laughing, or if you remained aware you would not laugh because you would be too focused on the exercise. If you laugh AND remain easily aware of yourself laughing, it's a new experience.

I also noticed that it is sometimes difficult to tell if you are being aware or not. It's hard to describe, but when you are noticing things passively and you do it for a long time, it starts to blur the line between paying attention and spacing out. If I feel that uncertainty I return to the basic practice of paying careful attention to my senses rather than to the context of my conscious experience.

Anyway, the big question: after four solid days of practicing, what impact has this had on my lucid dreaming efforts? None, so far. My recall has not improved. By inference I can say that I haven't had any lucid dreams, but I can't prove that part since I might not have remembered having any even if they occurred. An active nightlife has made it difficult to sleep properly this week and to do mantras and stuff to improve my recall, but this week should be better.

Going forward I'm going to do a pattern of two days on, one day off for the rest of the week. It seems to be better for my motivation to small-chunk this effort. Also, I would expect to see an exponential results curve for this exercise rather than a linear one, since there seems to be a very steep learning curve in the beginning. Maybe I won't see a single result until week 2 or 3, which is depressing to think about but very possible.